Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter… Is It Always About Business?

At the very bottom I’m going to share a video interview I did with Holly Jahangiri of It’s A Matter Of Perspective recently, whom I previously interviewed for this blog. It was a fun interview on the topic of writing and we talked about a few other things as well; very entertaining and I hope you watch it.

One of the things we talked about is all this noise we see these days where so many people are lambasting Facebook. There are some people who are doing it for privacy reasons but those don’t seem to be the people in the majority.

The majority of the people griping about it are those folks who were hoping to market there and, because of Facebook’s algorithm changes, can’t do it without paying for it, which makes no sense because so far it’s proven that just because one’s submission supposedly reaches more people doesn’t mean it will end up driving traffic anywhere.

Where am I seeing all of this? Mainly in two places; Twitter and Google Plus. As a matter of fact, G+ has become the business platform of choice, and if you believes everything I’m seeing, it’s better than Hershey’s chocolate on Byrne Dairy’s vanilla ice cream; now that’s just criminal!

Now, you’d think most of these folks would be talking about business things, even internet business things. Instead, they’re talking about… Facebook! Holly commented on it, saying that it’s like they can’t get it out of their brains. My thought is that it’s like the first girlfriend who’s left their life but in their quest to alter history it becomes the only thing they can think about.

Of course I lament the direction Facebook has gone, to the extent that I’ve seriously thought about ending my own business page there. But do I see myself leaving Facebook? Are you kidding?

You want to know the truth? After Twitter, I get most of my engagement on Facebook. I’m connected to many family members that I really didn’t get to see all that much as I was growing up, and being connected to the younger generation is pretty cool.

I’m connected to a lot of old friends and new friends there, and they revel in some of the short stories I can tell there and I get to enjoy what they share and we all have a pretty good time. I play two different versions of Scrabble there as well, and I have a group for Type II diabetics, something some of you know if personal for me.

Google Plus? I post enough stuff, share enough of other people’s stuff, and I get… almost nothing. If you read the previous post about liking stuff or whatever you want to call it I mentioned that I get almost nothing shared over there. And things I do get shared for the most part are by people I don’t know and don’t know if I’m connected to or not. Okay, I do know after a bit and most of them I’m not connected to.

I set up a community there and I get no engagement whatsoever. The same goes for my business page on Facebook but at least I know some people there are seeing it; I have no idea who sees what on Google Plug.

Now, I’m not hating on Google Plus, only stating a fact, and now another opinion. I find it incredible that all these marketers hate Facebook so much, to the extent that they’ll cancel their accounts because they can’t do business there. Really, is it all supposed to only be about business? Is it now a crime to have fun talking to people, something I try to do often there and on Facebook, and probably why most of my user experience on Google Plus isn’t great?

I asked one guy who stated that he’d killed his account if he missed not being able to see what was going on with his family members and friends. He said if they had something to say to him they could just call him on the phone. Let’s think about this for a minute. I have somewhere between 600 and 700 people I’m connected to on Facebook; do I really want all those people calling me all the time? How would I ever get anything done? Yes, there is a lamentation of not being able to be as close to some folks to the extent that I can talk to many of them on the phone, but there would be a limit to what I’d want to do; would you want all those people calling you?

As a point of comparison I took a look back to when I decided I was dropping Klout. It was November 16, 2011, and in my research I found that, not counting this post, I mentioned them again… never! That’s right; I kicked them to the curb and moved on with life.

So, for all you folks who have dropped Facebook because you can’t market there properly anymore, stop talking about it. We get it; you’re mad at them for killing your income. Move on, go back to talking about stuff you were talking about before.

For all you folks who dropped it for other reasons… mention it once, then go on about your business as well. Stop writing about it; we get it, you have better things to do with your time. Well, go do those things and stop talking about it. lol

And for those of you still hanging out on Facebook… well, if you’re reading this & we’re not connected there, look me up; I’m not hard to find. 😉

This post has 19 comments

People are illogical. The same people who complain about having to pay to promote their business are the same ones who install ad blockers and skip the commercials and wonder why their cable bill keeps going higher.

Nobody but Marketing and Advertising pros goes onto Facebook for BUSINESS. Good Lord, it was started by college students for college students as a way to hook up. First it was taken over by parents, then by businesses. And now businesses wonder why nobody wants to talk to “engage with” their ads.

Get a clue. If businesses can engage with people on a fun level – entertain them, help them solve problems, promote their customers, add value (and I’m not just talking about discount coupons, folks) – then customers will want to have them on their playground. But no one goes anywhere to be bombarded by ads. Even the folks running them.

We agree on this one greatly Holly; then again, we already knew that. lol I look at a lot of the links I share and realize that they’re not really for folks on Facebook, unless it’s related to my own business in some fashion, and then that’s when I put it on my business page. Seems weird sharing a post about blogging or marketing with the folks I’m connected with there.

And that could be a reason why FB filters out a lot of that stuff from general feeds, because it’s really not pertinent to the overwhelming majority of people there. Someone did a test and paid for one of her blog posts to be shown to more people. It told her over 600 people saw the link, and I asked her if her traffic showed an increase or if Analytics showed if anyone from FB went to that post; she said no. That was overwhelming proof, along with that post I’m sure you saw about Facebook fraud, that paying for eyes to see something that’s not really targeted to anyone makes no sense.

I’m glad Facebook’s around; great fun can be had there, and all for free!

Interesting post as Facebook is something I reluctantly embrace and then only minimally. All this stuff takes so much time and one has to choose between Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and on and on. The problem is that a lot of time has to be devoted to all of these and then a lot to one or two even more time. I think this is what is behind some of the resentment.
By the way Mitch, I love your name as I was a big Jimi Hendrix fan and of course Mitch Mitchell was he key drummer behind the Experience. But I guess you get that a lot.

Hey Steven. Actually, I don’t get it as much as I used to; different generation now. lol

As to the other, if you’re choosing which one to use and for what purpose it shouldn’t take all that much time. For me, I enjoy the ones I participate in more often than others, but I have to admit that I probably should spend more time on LinkedIn because it’s where I would probably get more business.

However, I find overall that I use social media for entertainment, and when you enjoy what you’re doing it takes no time at all. 🙂

It might sounds odd, but Facebook haven’t generate much for any of businesses I have done SMM, not now and not it the past. Just majority of people are there, just to hang out with their friends. On the other hand Twitter and especially LinkedIn have always bring traffic and sales. Unless we are talking about entertainment related niche business, Facebook is a social network where people don’t buy or click ads. How many Facebook ads, you have clicked in the last 3 years, Mitch?

Carl, I’ve never clicked on a Facebook ad. I also have never “liked” any product page or anything where it might link me to specific advertising, such as Star Trek or Harry Potter. Love those things, but I know why they created pages like that and I’m not interested in being marketed to.

So right – CARL!! (I knew I recognized your Gravatar, but was having trouble matching the names. 😉 Thanks for visiting my blog, too!)

I do occasionally interact with businesses on Facebook. But not the sidebar ads and NOT the in-your-face “promoted” posts, for the most part. Not unless they’re sociable, fun, interactive – usually a business that’s local to me, like my Honda dealer – that seems to really want a relationship with its customers and community (okay, I’ve entered just about every chance Nokia directly offers to win a new phone – but I won’t do that unless it’s direct from the manufacturer). Facebook is for friends, and I don’t have the time or desire to be friends with every business out there. If they’re not interested in forming relationships with their customers, then they shouldn’t BE there. (Or they should just stick to the sidebar ads and hope for the best. I don’t really OBJECT to those, any more than I do the Google ads. Free ain’t free, and I won’t block the ones that don’t annoy me, either. I’m willing to consider the interesting ones, too, if they catch me at the right time.)

Facebook does generate a good bit of traffic to my blog, because friends read my blog. They’re hanging out on Facebook. I post a link when I update the blog, to say, “Hey, I posted something new.” They click it, and come read. (See, that’s the point, Mitch – it’s a heads up, not a “Hey, lookit! Lookit! No hands, Ma!” I don’t figure they’re checking, every day, just hoping I’ll post something – every day. Do I look like a magazine??)Holly Jahangiri recently posted…#BlogCrawl and Bookishness

While the change of algorithm within the FB community was received harshly, those complaining should remember that like their businesses, FB is also a business.

Like you, despite all it’s shortcoming, FB has remained a very huge source of referral traffic for me. However, instead of outrightly quitting, I have instead joined more groups in my niche and spend less on trying to advertise nowadays.

That’s brilliant strategy Terungwa. I haven’t worried about it being referral traffic as much as a place of relaxation, but every once in a while I do get some bounce from there. It’s all about perspective isn’t it?

Sire, I noticed that CommentLuv isn’t working for me on some blogs lately either. I wonder what’s up with that? Actually, I think those businesses that can do well on Facebook are actually marketing it offline, like news stations and products. Still, if it’s only about business then where’s the fun?

CommentLuv Premium users can opt to make the links dofollow or not. (Not sure if this is what you mean by “not working.”) People are all panicked over Google’s latest algorithm changes, back to thinking their backlink juice will trickle down to the wrong folks, or whatever.

Ahh, but I see what you mean – I thought you were using the free version till now, and now I see you have the down arrow and more posts available. Sweeet! 😉

Me? I just employ all the spam shields, and anyone who manages to get approved by me (as opposed to hacking through the shields) gets dofollow links. I don’t care about Googlebots, just real people. I don’t care if my dofollow links are passing juice to a blog that ranks 5,679,420, if the blogger’s gonna stick around, read what I write, and leave a genuine comment or three.

I can’t help but think people who get too caught up in OTHER people’s metrics, without considering what actually works for THEM, are exactly the ones Google’s targeting every time they change the algorithm and rules.Holly Jahangiri recently posted…#BlogCrawl and Bookishness

No Holly, he meant that CommentLuv wasn’t working on this blog. Seems that because I don’t have a footer on this blog and the new version needs the footer to work properly I can’t upgrade the program any longer. Luckily I have the original, which I put back so people can continue getting their “luv” lolMitch Mitchell recently posted…Driving More Visitors To Your Blog; Are You Ready For The Work?

I’ll have to watch the video some other time because I just don’t have the time right now but I can just imagine what you and Holly talked about.

Now you know I wrote about Facebook changing their algorithms and how my business page isn’t getting the views it once did but I said my peace and moved on. I’m not there to make money but build relationships so that they’ll want to stop by my place but I admit not really promoting it like I should have. Kind of glad I didn’t now.

I hear those people who constantly complain about it and I’m thinking of one girl in particular. The only reason she hasn’t left is because she’s connected to her family and some friends there and they aren’t interested in joining Google+. She’s still complaining though.

Complaining about things isn’t going to change anything so like you, I left Klout and I don’t talk about that program either. I’m not losing any sleep over it and I’m not seeing my blog hurt by it either. That’s why we always say don’t put all your eggs in one basket or you’re going to be very upset when that source shuts you down. I guess some people just like to complain. Or maybe they just like hearing themselves. LOL!!!

Adrienne, I understand how it’s hard to let go of some things, especially when someone did you wrong. In this case, I always thought that Facebook business or fan pages had a limited time to do their damage before Facebook did something, and I was right. I still use my page to try to get some kind of engagement going, though I guess I’m bad at it. So be it; I have other things to do on Facebook that I enjoy a lot.